Baby Steps
by i'm.a.marker
Summary: John Winchester realizes that the only thing that really makes sense is his family. Weechester, series of one-shots.
1. Walking

**Author's Note: **Just something I wrote to help the insomnia. Enjoy! Review if you can! I'd love to see y'all's thoughts.

**Baby Steps**

The pale blue house on Granbury Street had a creaking staircase Tree branches clicked against the dusty windowpanes while the harsh October winds whistled through bare trees. Leaves scratched against the rotting boards of the front porch where a tired porch swung bumped loudly against the broken handrail. There was a small fire crackling in the hearth, a terrible substitute for a furnace that rattled and gave out moments after the young tenant had started it up. The cold of an on-coming winter froze the floorboards and made them pop loudly, even when no one crossed them.

The renter needed the house to be quiet when he did his research. He knew he asked a lot from his children, and he knew that silence from an eighteen month old and a five and a half year old was asking more than he ever should, but he had to. There were people outside of this pale blue monster with the moaning front porch that needed his help, and he couldn't help them if even the house wouldn't comply with the rules of silence.

There were two excited giggles from the left of John, and he sighed loudly, running a tired hand over his unshaven face. "Dean, would you knock it off?" he asked, turning to his five year old. "If you keep egging him on like that, he's just going to keep giggling."

Dean looked ashamed. "Sorry, Daddy," he muttered at the rug below his feet. Sam, on his hands and knees and ready to crawl, reached his imploring hand out and poked curiously at Dean's cheek. Dean blindly reached for his brother's hand and grasped it gently, quietly murmuring, "No, Sammy, Dad's working right now."

Sam, sensing that his older brother was done with having fun, fell backwards onto a diapered bottom and tilted his head in confusion. He leaned forward and reached out again, looking dejected when Dean swatted his tiny fist away. He made some gurgling noises, still unable to say much of anything other than a pathetic attempt at his brother's name and numerous exclamations for the word "dad." Dean shook his head and pulled at his loosened shoelace, obviously embarrassed that his father had to reprimand him.

John, though not entirely happy with the glumness on his children's faces, took the few moments of silence to look through the newspaper clippings again. It wasn't making sense to him. There had been three murders, all in the past four months. Two guys, one girl. All had been out with their friends, their spouses, their coworkers one night, and were found dead the next morning, all with a hole through the sides of their neck, with no trace of who— or what— had done it.

He had looked into all three victims, and other than having a nightlife on a the weekend, none of them had any similarities. One had been bald, one was a blonde, and one was a brunette. All were different ages, all were different ethnicities, and all did different things at night. One was married, one was single, and one was going on a blind date that their friend set them up on. So what exactly was this thing after? Once John found a motive for the creature, he could normally figure out who he was going after, but nothing in this case was fitting together quite right.

Sammy babbled loudly and let out a squeal of happiness. "Shh, Sammy," Dean whispered. "Daddy's working on something." Sam, though, didn't care one lick and squealed louder than before. He grabbed a handful of his brother's hair and pulled. "Ow!" the older boy exclaimed, pulling his head away. "Sammy, that hurts!"

John looked over at the boys. "Samuel," he said sternly. Even though the boy was young, he could tell by the tone of his father that he meant business. He stopped reaching for Dean's hair and looked over innocently, blinking bright hazel eyes at the man at the wobbling side table/makeshift desk on the other side of the living room. "That's right," John said a bit more gentle than before as his eyes locked on his baby's. "You know you aren't allowed to pull on people's hair."

Sam, with his gaze on John's, reached out blindly and yanked at his brother's hair.

"Ow!" Dean exclaimed, rubbing at his head.

And although John would normally never stand for that sort of disobedience, the rebellion from the child made him laugh out loud in spite of himself. "Samuel!" he exclaimed through his laughter. Where he had learned that disrespect, he had no idea. Dean normally obeyed the moment he was told to do something. The fact that his eighteen month old could look him right in the eyes and still grab onto his brother's hair was actually laughable to John. Sam giggled in delight at the sound of his full name, stuffing his fingers joyfully into his slobbery mouth.

"I think he's bored, Dad," Dean said, still rubbing at the sore spot on his head. "Are the blocks in Sammy's bag?"

John's heart sank. The blocks. He had been in such a rush to leave the last motel that he had forgotten that he tucked the blocks in the cabinet so the boys wouldn't be tempted to play with them while they were in time out.

"I'm sorry, kiddo," he said, turning to his five year old. "I think I left those at the motel a few days ago. D'you think you could find another way to distract him?"

"We could try walking again," Dean said, more to his brother than to his father. "Would you like that, Sammy? Want to learn how to walk?"

While that was normally a very noisy affair with Dean's encouragements and Sam's delighted giggles or mournful wails when he stumbled over, John just turned back to his research, thinking that he might be able to block it out if he put his mind to it. The boys had been remarkably good about moving to a new place and setting up in a new town. He knew he was going to lose his resolve right after he took one glance into his baby's bright eyes. He didn't know why he did this to himself.

The boy giggled in delight. Dean got himself to his feet and reached out his fingers for his little brother to grip. Sam reached up with spit-covered hands and grasped onto his brother for support while he was dragged onto his feet. Dean backed himself up and held his arms out, quietly persuading Sam into walking towards him. "Come on, Sammy!" he murmured happily. "Come on, buddy. Only like… three steps! You can do it!"

Sam gurgled, took a shaky step forward, and went right onto his bottom on the carpet. Dean sighed agitatedly and hoisted Sam to his feet again.

"Come on, Sammy! It's just walking!" he exclaimed, rolling his green eyes to the ceiling. "Just stick your foot out and set it down and then do it with the other one." He made it sound so easy, but to the eighteen month old, he was just excited to be playing some sort of game. This wasn't a life skill that he was learning. He was just being tugged out of boredom. He tried again. He took to steps and faltered, falling forward onto Dean's shins. "You're almost there, Sam. Just try it again."

He picked Sam up and plopped him the appropriate length away.

_Terry Russell, age 52, was found dead in his garage…_ He babbled baby nonsense at his brother and squealed loudly when Dean tried bribing him forward with the promise of Cheerios. _…hole in the side of his neck…_ He gripped his tiny fingers around Dean's larger ones and slowly went up to stand. _…No fingerprints, no suspects_...

"Ew, Sammy, you're getting slobber on my shirt now!" Dean exclaimed, shaking his hand out of his brother's grasp and trying to whip his fingers clear of Sammy Spit before it soaked his shirt sleeve again.

With the sudden tug and loss of support, Sammy toppled over sideways, smacking his head against the side of the coffee table. Dean turned his attention to the baby immediately and knelt down beside him while he started to blink the confusion from his eyes.

"Sammy, are you all right?" he asked, concerned, giving his brother a once over. John looked up just in time to see his curly-haired child through his head back and wail. His cheeks steadily pinkened while Dean tried to gather the crying infant into his arms. "I'm sorry, Sammy! I didn't know you were gonna fall over that easy, otherwise I would've held on tighter!" Sam bucked against his brother's arms, crying louder at the embrace. He looked over at his father and wailed even louder, reaching his arms out.

John sighed and cast a longing look at his research. None of it was making sense yet, and he had been at it for an hour. The bump was nothing to be concerned about, but Sam obviously needed some comforting. Comforting that normally Dean could provide. "What happened?" he asked his older son while folding up the newspaper.

"I don't know," Dean managed to get out while Sam strained against him, arching his back in protest and screeching ever the louder. "I pulled my finger away, and he fell over. Sammy, stop that!"

Sam finally broke free of his brother's arms just as John was on his feet. The man watched in awe as the little boy struggled to his feet and waddled unsteadily across the floor until he collided right into his father's shins, sobbing against his jeans and leaving a shiny mess of snot and tears across the toes of his boots. Dean's jaw dropped a bit, as did John's, when he reached down and scooped up the screaming child.

"Did you _see _that, Dad?" Dean asked in awe. "Did you _see _that?" Sammy had never taken so much as two steps without any guidance or help before.

"I did," John said quickly to Dean before turning to his hiccupping baby. "Shhh," he whispered into the child's ear, holding the boy close to his chest and bouncing him slightly. Sam spread his arms out and gripped the fabric of his father's tee shirt with an iron grasp of his tiny fists. "Shh, Sammy, it's okay," he said, bouncing one last hiccup out of the child. John rocked back and forth in his place for a moment, waiting patiently as Sam rubbed a snotty face across his shirt and then buried his head into the crook of his father's neck. Finally, the sobs completely subsided, and the boy pulled away, blinking at his father with wet eyes. A sudden realization flickered behind the waterworks, and a white-toothed grin spread across Sam's face.

"Dad, can you set him down and see if he'll walk to me?" Dean asked excitedly. He had been waiting for this day for a really long time. He always wanted his brother to be able to run around and kick the soccer ball with him and do a bunch of other fun games.

"You ready, champ?" John asked the brunette, setting him on the floor. Sam stood on unsteady feet, wobbling for a moment, before he started towards Dean. Dean was grinning ear-to-ear as his brother smiled back at him, looking in amazing down at his own Keds-clad feet.

"Come on, Sammy!" he exclaimed. "Come on!"

Sam giggled and looked over his shoulder. He stopped his course and made his way back to John, arms held open, stamping his little tennis shoes against the ground. John chuckled and lifted him back up, tossing him gently in the air and catching him on the way back down. Sam squealed with laughter.

"I think this calls for some celebration, don't you, kiddo?" John asked his eldest, reaching down and giving his hair a ruffle. "What do you say about some ice cream?"

"Yeah!" Dean exclaimed, pumping his fist in the air. "I'll go grab our coats!" he said excitedly, sprinting off towards the second floor.

John chuckled and kissed the side of Sammy's head, pushing all of his research into one pile for later. Maybe that wasn't making sense, but _this_, he thought while bouncing his giggling child on his hip, this does.


	2. Attention

**Summary: **John Winchester may not be the perfect parent, but there were a few things he knew that he could do right.

* * *

John felt his eyelids drooping miserably. He rubbed at them with a yawn, clutching a dying pen in his hand, before turning to the clock he set up just beside the small desk in their rented flat. Expecting the hands to be set at some ungodly hour, he was shocked to see that the timepiece only read about eleven o' clock at night. He had been working for only three hours, and he already felt like he had worked dusk to dawn. All of the Hunters he had talked to had said that this job would be hard, but no one told him that it would be like this. And no one told him how hard it would be to be a father at the exact same time.

He was lucky to have his children. John wasn't naïve enough to think otherwise. He had spoken to enough Hunters to realize how easily it could have been Sam or Dean rather than Mary. How easily that fire could have killed his whole family instead of only the love of his life. That's not to say that John was thankful for what he was given. Who would be thankful that their wife and soul mate had been murdered? But he couldn't deny whoever was out there fucking with his life a bit of gratefulness for sparing his children. But that was a tiny bit that he owed, really. They could have just left him alone in the first place.

John groaned and slammed down the cover of a yellow-paged dusty album and put his head in his hands. How could he ever catch the thing that killed Mary if he couldn't do a couple of hours of research without feeling like he was going to pass out? It was terribly tiring, being a father and a revenge-bent Hunter, and John had no idea where to draw the line between the two. Should he read that extra bedtime story to the boys, or should he get that five extra minutes of research that could get him an inch closer to Mary's murderer? Most people would say to read the bedtime story, that his Crusade would get him nowhere with the family that he had left. But those people didn't see their wife get killed.

Something clicked at the window to his right. John immediately tensed and wrapped his hand around his pistol that was sitting dutifully on the desk with the newspapers and police reports. He tried his hardest to keep firearms and ammo out of sight from the boys, but when they were asleep, he knew he was okay to lay them around just about anywhere. Sammy, who had just started to walk, was too short to reach any surfaces, even if he did manage to get out of his crib without John's noticing. Dean, who would never get out of bed unless it was dire, would never disobey John's biggest rule, even if John wasn't around to see it. John slackened to see that the empty tree branch was knocking against the pane. He clicked the safety and set the gun back down.

It was a cold winter, though John hadn't expected anything different considering their current place of refuge was in the middle of Bumfuck, Minnesota, whose lovely townspeople had more issues with ghosts than Haley Joel Osment. Snow had just begun to fall about two hours ago, something that he knew Sam and Dean were going to enjoy. He was scared to disappoint them. How could he let them out in the snow if he didn't have nearly enough heavy wear to load them with? The last thing he needed right now was for either of his children to catch pneumonia. Dean was already catching _something_. John didn't want that to escalate into _something bad_. The house was drafty, which had the boys running around in their heaviest clothes already, and, much to Dean's delight, he even got to slip on a few of his dad's sweatshirts when he felt too cold. And they bundled up Sam too, which made his five-year-old giggle in delight. The child was so small that even John's smallest items swallowed him whole. John made a vow to go out and get some more clothes from Good Will after he figured out his next plan of attack on this Remington Herzfeld haunting. At the very least, he could restock on their supply of socks, which was not only dwindling, but also the pairs that they had left had pitiful holes in the toes.

Strong ears picked up a sound from up the stairs. The house was silent with little furniture and knick-knacks to stifle sound. It was shocking to John how much difference furniture made to a home, not just for comfort, but for the sheer fact that they soaked in so much noise. He almost preferred to be barren of furniture; not only was it cost-efficient, but he favored being able to hear anything that was coming at him. He was on his feet, tucking his gun under the newspaper clippings and slipping as quietly as he could up the creaky staircase. He walked directly into the boys' room, stopping as he heard something roll and crunch underfoot. He looked down to see that a line of salt was dragged across the doorway in a thick, jagged line. Part of him was proud that Dean had thought of it. The other part was ashamed John had taught his son how to do it in the first place.

They didn't have a real crib. The only one that didn't look like it would collapse under his one and a half year old had cost a pretty penny, even at thrift stores. But they found a playpen for cheap at a garage sale, and after padding it down, it fit the family's needs much better. Dean could reach the latch to swing open the front, and John had easy access to his son that didn't cause for a lot of lifting when he was sore as hell. Plus Sam rather enjoyed not being lifted a foot or so off the ground when he slept, and the bars were further apart so he could survey his surroundings much better than in any crib they found. So the playpen did its duty well, even if it was a beaten hand-me-down that looked like it survived a war. John thought that description fit only too well for the Winchesters.

Dean was noisily snoring in his bed a few feet away from his little brother. He was folded over, his rear stuck straight in the air, his face buried into the pillow. His blankets were a mess about his small body and almost ready to slide right onto the floor. John gently reached for the boy and laid him across the mattress so that he was prone instead of propped so that he could tuck the thick blankets around his son as best as he could. The heating wasn't much better than the ventilation in the house, so the room was a bit chilly, something John had done his best to prepare his boys for with a space heater and extra clothes and blankets. Just as John smoothed the stick straight locks of his oldest, Sammy whimpered in his playpen.

He turned his attention to the one and a half year old, who was on his feet, grasping at the bars and looking at his father with shining eyes. John walked over carefully, his boots causing hell on the warped floorboards. "What's up, kiddo?" he muttered quietly, standing at the crib. Sam was a pretty sound sleeper for the most part. John made sure to feed him a hefty amount of food and change his diaper right before bed so that there were minimal interruptions while he slept. He had been a bit finicky that night, something that John didn't care to put up with as Dean was already giving John hell about his chest cold and their lack of chewable medicine tablets. Not that Dean had actually said anything. It was just John's noticing that killed him. How the boy had managed to go so long with a runny nose and hacking cough without bothering his dad for help was beyond him. He prayed that he hadn't scared Dean away from asking for help. But because of Dean's cough, John hadn't been in any mood to put up with Sam's protests about his baby food and sent him to bed with only a small bit of warm sustenance in his stomach. John hadn't really thought about it until now.

As soon as John approached the playpen, Sam's arms went up to be held and his sniffles grew into wailing. John, eyebrows knitted in confusion, reached down and hoisted the child onto his hip. Sam immediately went to latch onto John's flannel button down, but John pulled away and put a hand on his son's forehead. He had a horrible feeling in his gut that Sam was starting to catch whatever Dean had. Before he could get a good feeling of his son's temperature, Sam wiggled away from his father's outstretched hand, obviously put off. "Come on, Sammy," John said quietly, trying once more for his son's forehead. Sam pushed his father's hand away and started to wail even louder, grasping at the fabric of John's shirt.

John, scared that Sam's cries would awaken his soundly sleeping five year old, started out of the room, frustrated at Sam's lack of cooperation. The boy's wails got louder, and his attempts to scale his father's chest got stronger as John headed down the stairs and into the kitchen. Finally, John took a firm hold of Sam and placed a large hand on his forehead. It seemed warm to him, but he could never tell if it was Sam's natural baby warmth— babies always seemed warmer than everyone else to John; Dean had been the same way when he was an infant— or it was a growing temperature that was locked behind his palm. Mary had always been able to tell. She was a natural while John was a fumbling idiot, but he certainly tried.

Sam yanked himself away again and reached for John's face while he cried louder, fat tears rolling down his pink cheeks. John knitted his eyebrows again, running his free hand through his dark hair. "A bottle maybe?" he asked out loud. He headed towards their fridge with the busted light bulb and reached inside. "Are you hungry, buddy?" Sammy wiggled uncomfortably and started to tug at the small buttons on John's shirt. John peeled Sam's fingers away and grabbed out a pre-made non-spill sippy cup for his son. He had been so confused when he bought the container. The woman at the store assured him that it wasn't a bottle, but it looked exactly like one to John. Was he ever going to be able to tell the difference, or would Sam be the only teenager in the world who still drank from a baby bottle?

John struggled to pop the bottle into the ancient microwave while Sam's back arched in protest. He was set low on John's hip to ensure that his head wouldn't get smacked by the appliance door, and his legs were pressed against John's legs, trying in vain to straighten out and lever him up towards his father's face. John wouldn't have it. "Samuel Campbell Winchester!" he said sternly, though quietly. "No, sir, you cannot do this!" Sam, who had always been a very stubborn baby, wouldn't have it from his father either, and he reached up once more. "Sam!" John snapped, pushing down Sam's hand as he grabbed out the heated bottle. He kicked out a chair from the square kitchen table and sat down, readjusting so that Sam was relaxed against his chest and kept from slipping by one of John's strong arms. He popped the sippy cup into his son's mouth.

Sam took the chewy lid greedily into his new white teeth and sucked down a good portion of the bottle while John sighed happily. "That's it," he said, relieved. He ran a hand over his face and waited. After a few moments, Sam let go of the bottle with one hand and reached for his father's. John, too tired to protest, let his son lower his hand. Sam ran his little fingers— how could he even be that small? Was John that small one time too?— over his father's larger ones and stopped when he felt a strip of cool metal. Sam lifted his head, bottle still pressed between his lips, and looked at John's wedding ring with still wet hazel eyes. John felt his chest close up as Sam pushed the ring up until it caught on John's knuckle. He hadn't taken it off since he had gotten married, and he was praying to any god that he had ever heard of that Sam wasn't going to cry until John took it off and handed it away, because he didn't know if he would be able to do that, even if it meant that Sam was up all night crying.

Luckily for John, Sam lost interest in the ring, though at the same time, he lost interest in the bottle too. He let it go, and it went crashing into John's lap. (Thank God for spill-proof caps.) The moment the bottle left his mouth, Sam was crying again, arching his back and trying to reach his father's face. "What's the matter with you, Sammy?" John asked, lifting his son up and taking a quick smell. If there was only one thing that John had mastered as a father, it was how to tell if a diaper was full. And Sam's definitely wasn't. Maybe he was just really tired. John was hesitant to put him back upstairs though. Dean needed his rest. They had an extra, smaller and unpadded, playpen in the living room where John was working, and while it wasn't ideal, perhaps it would work.

He headed into the living room while Sam wailed in his arms. Lifting the boy up, he started to place him into the pen. Sam's eyes widened, and his wailing reached deafening decibels. He screeched at the top of his lungs and scrabbled with tiny fists to latch onto his father. John was about to place Sam down when he grabbed onto his dad's arm so ferociously that, when John tried to pull his arm away, he brought his crying baby with him. Sam wailed even louder. "Samuel!" John exclaimed quietly. He lifted up the child and held him close to his chest. Sam cried, burying his face into the crook of John's neck, and latching his small fingers around the fabric of his shirt. John paced the living room, bouncing the small child as his wails died. "Shhh," he told Sam. "Shhh, it's okay, Sam. It's fine." Sam hiccupped, gasping into his father's chest, rubbing his running nose into John's flannel.

John rubbed his son's back and planted a kiss on the top of his dark curly hair. Sam's crying slowly died down until he was quietly resting his head on his father's shoulder while the man rocked back and forth in the middle of the living room. "Are you better, Sammy?" he asked the one and a half year old. "You just wanted some attention. Is that all?"

Sam shuddered and grasped even tighter at John's shirt. John's heart swelled.

While he would never admit it, he secretly missed the days that Dean would ask to sit in his dad's lap, the days that he just wanted to hold his dad's hand when they walked through the grocery store, and the days that he'd rush up and hug his father when he walked through the front door, even if he had only been out getting the mail at the end of the walkway. Now the boy appreciated a hug and a kiss now and again, and he would always hold John's hand when he was nervous about a new setting, but it was Sammy that loved to be coddled and held, something that John and Mary had both been good at before… Before.

He might not be able to tell when Sam was running a fever or when Dean was in dire need for a trip to the dentist, but this, this was something that John could do.


	3. Hey Jude

**Hey Jude**

The Tequila Mockingbird was dark, quiet, like some sort of shadow was cast across the building like an impending doom. The bar was waxed and shining, dark nicks and dents like scars on a smooth surface. Light fixtures glowed orange and fuzzy on the walls, spilling over vacated tables and the sticky, peanut-shell littered floors. Besides the click of glass on buffed wood surfaces and the occasional murmur of the town drunk as he told himself the story of the Three Little Pigs for the fourteenth time that night, sound in the bar was still as the stagnant air. The bartender was just as dark as his workspace; he only stepped out of the shadows to refill John's beer and grab cash from other patrons. John titled back the glass, staring into its depths like it held all the answers to the world.

A thin layer of amber liquid coated the bottom of his mug, swishing miserable against the fogged glass as he tipped the glass from side to side. It was his second drink of the night— or of the morning, really, as the clock behind the bar read half past midnight. He wasn't planning on consuming any more, besides this last dreg swirling in his hands; he was driving the last two hours back to Bobby's house first thing in the morning, and the last thing he needed was a sun rise paired with a nasty hangover. John swallowed down the last of his drink, stamped the empty glass and ten dollars for the beer onto the counter, and grabbed his leather coat, heading for… some semblance of home.

Before he hopped into the Impala, John crossed the empty road and exchanged a five dollar bill for a dollar in change and a keychain that had Dean's name on it. He pocketed both, left the spare dime and penny on the counter, and walked outside without exchanging a single word with the cashier. John eyed his beloved car, sitting in the parking lot with a grocery cart full of garbage and a stealthy cat, and headed towards the street corner, pockets jingling with every step.

Under the pale glow of a flickering streetlamp, a stalwart payphone waited for the Hunter. The box was rusted, dented, with graffiti sprayed across its chipped paintjob. Exposed to years of nasty weather and even nastier drunkards, the payphone was a rugged survivor of the impossible. John figured that's why he was drawn to it in the first place. Once standing in front of the phone, John slipped two quarters from his pocket and into the hungry slot. He had four minutes for fifty cents, and he was planning to put those four minutes to good use. His last half-dollar would be used to call Bobby just before he got into the man's Minnesota abode.

John let the chilly wind slap his face, sobering up what little edge the man had gotten from his two drinks. He stuffed his hands into his pockets, collar now popped against the frigid breeze. He shifted impatiently, waiting for the phone to be answered.

_Three minutes and fifty-eight seconds. Three minutes and fifty-seven seconds._

"Hey, Bobby? How're the boys?" John asked the moment he heard the ringing stop. He wasn't one to beat around the bush while on the phone, especially when it came to his boys. And especially when his four minutes were ticking.

"Dean's all right, John, but Sam's drivin' me right up the wall," Bobby sighed wearily.

John winced as he heard his one and a half year old wailing in the background. "What's the matter with him, Bobby?" he asked, alertness elevated to threatening heights.

"Don't know. I tried feedin' him and changin' him, but he ain't bitin' on anything," Bobby told his friend.

"Well, it's past midnight," John pointed out. "He's probably just tired. Have you tried putting him to sleep?"

"Sleep. Why didn't _I_ think of that?" Bobby asked sarcastically. "Of course I tried puttin' him to sleep, John. He just cried the whole time."

"Did you put him in Dean's bed?" John asked. Every time Sam had trouble sleeping in his makeshift cribs, John moved him to his toddler's bed. The moment Dean's larger arms wrapped around Sam's tiny body, the baby would instantly relax, popping a thumb in his mouth and eventually drifting into sleep.

"Yeah, Dean and I tried that," Bobby said. "I can't tell if he's got a fever, or he's just warm, either. How much longer that Hunt of yours gonna last?"

"I'm done now. I was going to drive in tomorrow morning, but if Sam needs me now—," John started.

"Don't be stupid," Bobby interrupted. "You sound like you're an inch away from death. Get some rest. Dean and I will deal with Sam for tonight."

"Did you try singing to him?" John asked, not paying attention to his friend's words and instead thinking of a solution to the issue.

"Yeah, just proves to you how good of a person I am," Bobby said gruffly.

"Even _that_ didn't work?" John asked. Lullabies always lulled the kid to sleep, at least in John's experience it did.

"Kid's still wailin', isn't he?"

"I told him he sang all the wrong songs!"

"Dean?" John asked, pressing his ear closer to the receiver. "Bobby, why is Dean still awake?"

"Same reason I'm still awake, you idjit. Your other kid is screamin' at the top of his lungs, that's why," Bobby snapped. "No one can get a wink of sleep if he's yellin' like this."

"I'm telling you, Bobby," Dean whined in the background. From the way Dean was shouting, it seemed to John like his oldest was holding Sam, or at least he was very close to the crying child, and was trying hard to get his voice heard over the wails. "You just aren't singing the right songs!"

"Yeah, well, I'm not a damn _radio_, Dean!" Bobby barked at the five and a half year old. If it wasn't for the fact that John had said much worse words in front of his child, he probably would have gotten angry at his fellow Hunter for swearing at Dean.

"Did you try 'Hey, Jude'?" John asked.

"'Hey Jude'?" Bobby asked incredulously. "What kind of kid song is that?"

"'Hey Jude'! That's it!" Dean exclaimed.

"You mean, this entire time the 'Jew' song was 'Hey, Jude'?" Bobby exclaimed. John almost chuckled at what he assumed to be Dean's mispronunciation when he realized how it would sound to an outsider. He would have to talk to Dean about not sounding racist when he was around other people. That was just screaming for attention that John neither wanted nor needed.

"Well, sor-_ry_ I didn't remember the name!" Dean retorted hotly. "It's hard to think with Sammy yelling like this!"

"Now don't you get smart with me, boy!" Bobby demanded. "I ain't your daddy. I don't know how to do this!"

"Bobby, why don't you stop fighting with my five year old and just sing to Sam? It will probably stop the crying for a bit, at least calm him a bit until he falls asleep," John said. Sam's wails reach an all time high and the decibel leaves John's ears ringing. He doesn't know what clenches harder: his fists or his heart. "I'll get home as soon as I can, all right?"

"Yeah, whatever, John." _Click. _

A woman's recorded voice filled the earpiece, and John slammed down the phone, turning on his heel and striding back to the Impala. Once in the Tequila Mockingbird's parking lot, he swatted the yowling cat off his trunk, got inside his moaning beast of a car, and wheels squealing, turned towards Minnesota.

He made it into Bobby's front lawn by two o' clock in the morning. Hinges on his car door squeaking, he slammed his shut and thudded onto the porch in his heavy workbooks, mud from his recent Hunt still clinging to his soles. Bobby was collapsed on the couch, a blanket placed awkwardly over his chest. Neither of his sons were in sight. John stripped off his leather jacket and tossed it onto the coffee table. He took no care in being silent as he rushed up the staircase and into the room where he had last left his boys.

This time, managing silent footsteps, he pushed open the bedroom door and peeked inside, eyes adjusting quickly to the dark. They zeroed in on the twin bed. The lump under the old white blanket was slowly rising and falling with Dean's breathing. A whimper came from the folds of the cloth.

John strode the warped wooden boards underfoot and knelt at the side of the bed. Sam was tucked under his brother's arm, face wet and shining, eyes bright in the dark of the room. At the sight of his father, the little boy started to sniffle. He reached his arms out, pushing away the heavy blanket as fast as his little fists could. John scooped the child out of bed and held him close. Sammy hiccupped, popping a thumb in his mouth. His face was warm, even through the thickness of John's shirt.

John walked to the window seat and sat himself comfortably on the stained cushion, leaning up against the wall with his baby resting against chest. The boy was so small that he rose and fell with his father's breathing, and John had to wonder—not for the first time— if he had ever been this small. Sam let out another whimper, and John shushed him, planting a kiss on top of the boy's curly hair. "_Hey, Jude, don't make it bad. Take a sad song, and make it better_…"

It wasn't really the song that Sam had needed. It was just John's voice.


End file.
